20 Things You Should NOT Be Doing When Reducing Fat Arms, Part 2

11. Assuming healthy food at a restaurant is actually healthy. The food industry is willing to make a profit at the expense of your health. And restaurants are no exception. Sad, but true. I used to eat at Boston Market all the time under the assumption that their roasted chicken and sirloin—one of the leanest cuts of meat you can find—were healthy. BIG MISTAKE. Their “award winning” sirloin (under the family meals category) has lethal trans fats—public enemy number one for toning flabby arms.

And Jack in the Box’s grilled chicken strips, which meet their “Healthy Dining Nutrition Criteria”, also contain trans fats! Unlike Boston Market, Jack in the Box goes to great lengths to hide this from the consumer. First, the main website states that their grilled chicken strips contain 0 trans fats—they can do this because of a loophole. Second, you have to download a PDF to see the actual ingredients in the grilled strips. Third, you have to magnify the PDF by 200% because the font is so small. Fourth, they use the term “vegetable shortening” (another name for trans fat) to hide their dirty little secret even further.

How deceiving is the food industry going to get? We are already the most obese country in the world. Heart disease (directly related to trans fat intake) is our number one killer. This has to stop.

If you are going to eat out, grill whoever is serving the food so that you know exactly what’s going into your body.

12. Eliminating “pleasure foods”. You can have your cake and eat it too when toning flabby arms. The key is how you go about eating that piece of cake. The pleasure food itself isn’t inherently bad (trans fat being the exception), it’s the digestion rate and caloric load that you have to adjust for. How do you adjust for the digestion rate? Combine the pleasure food with something that is slow digesting like vegetables or a salad. How do you adjust for the caloric load? Don’t have the whole cake, just a small slice!

13. Assuming supplements are healthier than whole foods. Not only will whole foods leave you more satisfied, but there are simply way too many interactions between their nutrients that we have not yet discovered or understand. Research study after research study has consistently proved that whole foods are far superior to supplements.

14. Supplementing with fiber. A solid study showed that supplementing with 3.5 grams of fiber per day increased colon cancer risk by 67%. Perhaps it was free radicals in the processed fiber that caused this. In any case, get your daily fiber from vegetables and legumes. Supplementation is dangerous and unnecessary. Not to mention, eating lots of vegetables and legumes will make toning flabby arms that much easier!